“The current SPD leadership is apparently partly in the hands of fundamentally oriented Muslims who want to prevent a critical discussion of Islam in Germany in principle,” Sarrazin told Tichys Einblick.
The background is the party expulsion Sarrazins sought by the SPD. The Berlin State Arbitration Commission had reached a desicion on Thursday that the SPD was allowed to exclude the author.
Sarrazin has been a part of the party since 1973. The arbitration committee of the SPD district association Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf had decided in July last year that Sarrazin had violated the “values” of the party.
“The dissemination of anti-Muslim and cultural-racist statements by the defendant under the guise of his well-known SPD membership, which is repeatedly highlighted in press reports, questions the credibility of the party and its commitment to its values and basic views,” said the statement.
Sarrazin appealed against this but was defeated by the Berlin Arbitration Commission. The bestselling author also wants to contest their verdict.
In an interview with Tichy’s Einblick, Sarrazin accused his party of withdrawing from the center of society and losing its capacity as a left-wing People’s Party.
It was not he who changed, but the SPD, he said. “In the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s or even in the early 2000s, the SPD would never have thought of excluding someone from the party because of a book that is critical of religion,” emphasized the 74-year-old.
“I would also definitely not have been excluded from the SPD if I had written a critical book not about Islam but about the Catholic Church.”